The fly-down played again. This one was more limited. It covered only the track from orbital entry to the parking spot at a geosynchronous station above Saint George. But that was all they needed. They ran the pass in reverse. During the intervening half-millennium between the reports, mountains had spilled their guts onto the plains below. Bonneville had grown from pinprick to splodge, rail lines and a highway now connecting it to Saint George; the brilliant flash of the DAZ-E field and the flat, fenced expanses of the Hopper strips and Lynx port; the endless rows of associated warehouses clearly visible. The flat, white panne of The Barrens was now punctuated by scratches of roads and tracks; crossroads and pumping stations; emerald wheels of circle irrigation. An airstrip made a creamy, scrub-bounded cross against the white glare. This time they brushed the range top, then bursting forth over—a vast expanse of gridded, lifeless grey, featureless beneath the imager’s lens. A rectangular black slash of water marked where the once-meandering delta’s estuaries had been.

“See?” said the lieutenant. “Nothing there. Fits in with that Swenson’s report about what happened around Saint George. At some point, they went in, cut drains through the marshes, laser-leveled the fields, and brought in heavy cultivators. Didn’t last, though, and once it wore out, they abandoned it. Pity. They turned really productive wetland into salt desert, for the sake of a few decades of crops, at best.”

The major nodded, and rose to leave. “Ok. Get some sleep, but keep looking for anything important. I’d ask better questions, but I can’t think of any yet. See what you can come up with.”

12

Paternity Suit

Enki answered Ninmah: "I will counterbalance whatever fate—good or bad—you happen to decide."

Ninmah took clay from the top of the sacred water in her hand and she fashioned from it first a man who could not bend his outstretched weak hands. Enki looked at the man who cannot bend his outstretched weak hands, and decreed his fate: he appointed him as a servant of the king.

Second, she fashioned one who turned back the light, a man with constantly opened eyes. Enki looked at the man who turned back the light, the man with constantly opened eyes, and decreed his fate: he appointed him as a servant of the king.

Third, she fashioned one with both feet broken, one with paralysed feet. Enki looked at the one with both feet broken, the one with paralysed feet and decreed his fate: he appointed him as a servant of the king.

Fourth, she fashioned one who could not hold back his urine. Enki looked at the one who could not hold back his urine and bathed him in enchanted water and drove out the namtar demon from his body.

Fifth, she fashioned a woman who could not give birth. Enki looked at the woman who could not give birth, and decreed her fate: he made her a weaver, fashioned her to belong to the queen's household.

Sixth, she fashioned one with neither penis nor vagina on its body. Enki looked at the one with neither penis nor vagina on its body and gave it the name eunuch and decreed as its fate to stand before the king.

—Enki and Ninmah, The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

House of Sargon, Mesolimeris

Moties weren’t given to emotional displays—at least, not to displays that humans could easily interpret—but Lagash’s reaction to being greeted in a stream of archaic languages was unmistakable. The old Keeper visibly wobbled on Enheduanna’s arm, and the bone-wrenching feeling that Asach was beginning to recognize as sub-audible communication between Masters ensued.

Before they could react, in the mish-mosh of languages they thus far shared, Asach said: “I talk Anglic. You hear many words. You stop you hear words you understand,” then punched on the auto-translator, now beefed up with fifteen languages judged by the Blaine experts as the widest-possible cross section in time and space known from the Motie Library of Alexandria.

“Good Morning.” Fifteen possible variations screeched and twittered from the cowl of Asach’s cloak.

“My name is Asach. You know this already.” Trilling and rumbling ensued as the cloak sent the translations.

“Do you understand any of this?” Zipping and—then Lagash shouted the word that even Laurel could understand.

“Hold! What is that?”

Asach glanced at a sleeve, noted the indicator, and set it as the default translator.

“I have made lists of words. Do you understand?”

The Masters heard in their own language something akin to: I awrát weaxbredu tala ealdspræca. ðu ackneaow? That is, it was about as close to Mesolimeran as Old English was to Modern Anglic. It meant nothing to Enheduanna. But to Lagash, it was very like the language of the oldest form of the oldest myth known.

“Listen,” said Asach, “then repeat in your own language.” Asach activated an auto-learn program. It was crude, but it rapidly built a syntax and lexicon by comparing the projected phrase to the one spoken back.

Lagash was fascinated. It appeared that overnight Asach had acquired the ability to speak by projecting words directly from the chest and throat, without involvement of the mouth or lips. The interactive program itself was also interesting. Motie-designed, it was succinct. It did not suffer from the agonizing slowness of working directly with the human. Within an hour, it was as smart in Mesolimeran as a bright child. And it already knew Anglic. Enheduanna joined in. Machine-assisted, their mutual patois came faster and faster now.

“We must have food now. We must have cleanliness. We must have these feces and urine removed. We will sicken and die. We already feel ill from hunger.”

“The Protector grants meals. It is not in our power.”

“Please inform the Protector that we request an audience.”

“The Protector is aware of your request.”

Asach was finally irate. “Inform the Protector now!” Interestingly, what boomed from the cloak was not merely a translation. There came a greasy undertow to the air: transmissions in the sub-audible. Enheduanna flinched. Lagash answered.

“Yes, milord. We inform the Protector now.”

Bowls of dark green jelly arrived within the hour. It looked like slime. It tasted like manna. Next came a cleanup crew, and chamber pots. Next returned Lagash and Enheduanna.

Then the real work began. Five thousand word groups are enough to communicate like a five-year-old child. Ten thousand enough to make your way about as an adult in a foreign land. Twenty thousand enough to speak with the expertise gained by a university education. The simplest Mesolimeran myth contained thirty thousand word groups, with tenses and cases unknown in any human language. The Masters worked until they had exhausted the downloaded vocabulary. Then they all worked until they had exhausted their shared Tok Pisin and Anglic. At the end of the day, Asach’s headache was blinding. Enheduanna seemed unfazed. The working group had bonded. They could communicate with relative ease. Simple questions followed.

“Where are we?”

“At the House of [idiomatic translation of a proper name for a powerful and fertile leader with jurisdiction over former wastelands, descended from wanderers=Sargon], [idiomatic translation for a formal rendering of the proper name for the-land-between-the-mountains=Mesolimeris].”

“Why are you holding us?”

“At the order of Lord Sargon.”

“For how long?”